


fountain of youth

by andnowforyaya



Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Established Relationship, M/M, Minor Character Death, Multi, Stranger Things AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-09
Updated: 2016-10-09
Packaged: 2018-08-20 11:01:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8246495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andnowforyaya/pseuds/andnowforyaya
Summary: “Hyungwon didn't come home?” he'd asked, and Minhyuk had shaken his head sleepily, rolling over when Kihyun settled in beside him.He hadn't worried, then.But now, it's two days later, and Hyungwon isn't answering any of their calls.





	

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by stranger things.

Hyungwon is missing.

The last time Kihyun had seen him was when he was waking Hyungwon up from where he’d collapsed onto their couch after a long day of work and a couple of drinks. His bed was just in the other room, but he hadn't made it that short distance. Kihyun thought the other boy still had makeup on his face that morning, but looking closer, he realized that Hyungwon’s eyeliner was permanent, and that his lips looked like they had always carried that perfect bow shape.

He must have recently had another round of modifications.

“...time is it?” Hyungwon had sleepily mumbled.

“Ten in the morning,” Kihyun had said. “You’re going to be late for your shoot.”

“They'll find someone else who looks like me,” Hyungwon had grumbled, turning over to bury his face into the cushions.

“Yeah, and then they'll pay someone who's not you, too,” Kihyun had argued, reaching for Hyungwon’s arms and hauling him up to sitting. This was usually the best way to wake Hyungwon up -- by forcing him to move.

“I'm not your cash cow,” Hyungwon had said, letting his body become dead weight as Kihyun struggled. “Stop using me for money.”

Finally, Hyungwon was sitting up and rubbing at his eyes and Kihyun was panting from the effort. Kihyun said, “You haven't paid rent in two months,” to which Hyungwon sniffed haughtily, but it made him get off the couch.

He'd left that morning for a photo shoot; his face was going to be plastered all over the crystal-like buildings in the Garden District. Kihyun had cooked himself and Minhyuk an early lunch. Sat down to it before he had to leave for work at the bar near the edge of the District, where the riff raff of the outer neighborhoods and the beautiful people of the Garden met to have drinks and get drunk. Alcohol, Kihyun supposes, is about the same no matter where you live.

It was late when he got back home, nearing the early hours of the morning. Minhyuk was a lump under the covers on their bed, his bright blond hair visible. He'd stopped by the bar earlier, but on his days off Kihyun knew he preferred to laze about in the apartment or go window shopping for all the latest crazy trends the rose boys were touting. Kihyun had stumbled into their tiny bathroom, dry-showered, changed, and crawled into bed beside him, waking him a little with his careful movements.

“Hyungwon didn't come home?” he'd asked, and Minhyuk had shaken his head sleepily, rolling over when Kihyun settled in beside him.

He hadn't worried, then.

But now, it's two days later, and Hyungwon isn't answering any of their calls.

.

They go to Hyunwoo first, certain the oldest of their group of friends would know something they don’t, but he shakes his head and says, “I'm as in the dark as you.”

He promises to let them know immediately if anything turns up.

They go to Jooheon and Changkyun next, the elevator of the pair’s apartment building clunking up the levels to the right floor and screeching to a halt.

Though they live in the same neighborhood, it is clear that Changkyun and Jooheon are in a different line of work than Kihyun and Minhyuk just from the state of their homes. Kihyun and Minhyuk’s apartment is small and compact, organized so that everything that isn’t needed immediately is tucked away. The walls are smooth, and it is, in general, clean. Changkyun and Jooheon’s living quarters might be similar in size, but everything inside and around the apartment just looks  _tinkered_ with, wires hanging out of walls, sparks flying periodically from open circuits. Junk parts littering the floor. It makes Kihyun itch, just standing in here.

“We haven't seen him on our runs,” Changkyun tells them both while they watch him fiddle with the parts of an old machine on a lab bench. Kihyun can't tell any of the wires or circuits Changkyun is working on apart, but Changkyun and Jooheon both seem to be able to read machines the same way a literate person might read a book. They dive for old parts around the city, transforming junk into operable little inventions that they sell for (what Kihyun thinks is) an exorbitant price.

It's not exactly legal, but what really is these days? The threat of being arrested and spending a couple nights in jail keeps them on their toes. And sometimes, Kihyun thinks, being a junk collector might be a better life than doing shots with strangers at the bar.

“Maybe he's finally converted?” Jooheon asks, “gone full rose boy.”

“He'd never,” Minhyuk insists. “He thinks they're vapid and soulless!”

“He's not far off from that himself,” Changkyun teases, but Kihyun's gut twists uncomfortably at the thought.

He wonders if Hyungwon’s most recent round of modifications had come from his own interest in them or from an agent intending to mold him into another image. Rose boys and girls and andros are the embodiment of the Garden District’s pursuit of the ideal, specimens of every gender built tall and slim and beautiful and still chasing after that perfect image. Simple modifications came about ages ago, but nowadays self-proclaimed roses seem to modify their bodies every other week, and some people Kihyun knew as a child are unrecognizable to him now, with their new cheeks and noses, permanent colorful stains on their lips, legs too long for their bodies.

Though most smaller-scale modifications are considered safe now -- hair color and eye color are easiest and safest to change permanently -- modifications dealing with bone structure and a person’s genetic code are becoming increasingly more prevalent and risky. Kihyun feels a shiver snake down his backbone at the thought of being fundamentally _changed_ as a person, and how some roses have done this of their own volition, always chasing after the next ideal of beauty.

He’s heard of people who absolutely lose themselves in the process of pursuing modification after modification. Who disappear.

Still, despite the dangers, everyone wants to be beautiful, and Kihyun is no exception to the rule. He cards his fingers through his soft pink hair self-consciously.

“Hey,” Changkyun says softly, noticing him fidget. “He’ll turn up.”

Kihyun nods, leaning back against Minhyuk, who kisses his temple in reassurance.

.

On the third day, they go to the police. The report they file with an officer, though, gets shuffled into a pile of others, and when they leave they walk by a wall filled with the headshots and profiles of missing persons, the wall updating with a cascade of new faces and names every few seconds.

.

Kihyun pushes over three mixed drinks to the girl at the corner of the counter, who takes the drinks with a wild, crazy smile. It’s only just beginning to get busy at the bar but the crowd is already loud enough that Kihyun has to shout over the thumping music and screams to be heard. He calls for 40 units and the girl hands over her card. She probably didn’t hear the exact number, her attention already distracted as she turns back to the dance floor.

“Your card!” Kihyun calls after her, when he's done transferring the units.

She does turn back, grinning. “Thanks! Love your cat ears, by the way.”

Kihyun touches the tops of the fake cat ears on his head. They’re pink to match his hair. Minhyuk had brought them home earlier that week after a trip to the Garden District, rambling all about how he’d seen actual real people with _real_ cat ears instead of just the accessories. The newest trending mod.

Kihyun will stick to the ones he can remove at the end of the day, thanks.

“Thanks,” he says. “Hey, have you seen this guy around?” He pulls out his phone and flashes a picture of Hyungwon in the girl’s direction. He’s been showing Hyungwon’s picture around all night, and though some people have responded that the boy seems familiar, most don’t have any new information. He’s gotten from a few people that they had seen Hyungwon around the bar a couple of nights ago, but that is all, and they don’t remember much more than that.

The girl shakes her head. “Cute boyfriend, though,” she says, and she leaves the bar before Kihyun can correct her otherwise. Her space at the counter is quickly filled by two other bodies, and Kihyun rushes to get to their drink orders.

The night continues like this: Kihyun prepares drinks, asks if anyone has seen Hyungwon, gets a negative response, prepares more drinks. Gets compliments on his cat ears. An hour of this later, Minhyuk shoves his way to the front of the bar and ducks under the counter space with an empty, glass tray that is rimmed with blue light.

“More shots,” Minhyuk says. He’s wearing a matching pair of cat ears on his head, but his are white. His black shirt looks damp across his chest, likely from a beverage spill. “Oh, and it’s your turn.”

Kihyun pouts. “I hate being shot boy.”

Minhyuk is already filling up the tray with skinny test tubes, held in place by a second tier of glass with slots built into the tray. The first three rows of drinks are alcoholic, and the last remaining row contains the drinks for Kihyun, still bright and colorful but much less potent. The drinks glow, amplified by the blue light. Fluorescent pinks and greens.

“You don’t hate the tips,” Minhyuk says. "Or the attention." He hands Kihyun the tray and also the card for the bar he is wearing around his neck. Kihyun ducks his head so that Minhyuk can loop the lanyard around his neck instead. “Any luck asking around?”

Kihyun shakes his head. “More of the same. Some sightings, but no one has seen or heard anything about Hyungwon since he disappeared.”

Minhyuk sighs and kisses Kihyun’s cheek. “I’ll keep asking, too.”

Kihyun bites his lip and tries to keep the wave of worry from incapacitating him. Hyungwon might be a bit of a flake, and abrasive, and insufferable, but he was _theirs_ and after years of friendship he’d never leave them without an answer for this long if he could help it. He takes a deep breath and exhales, ducking under the counter with the tray carefully balanced by his shoulder and walking out into the crush of bodies.

.

Kihyun’s row of drinks runs out within the first few minutes of his shift, and he has to start digging into the others, the tang of alcohol going slick down his throat when he stops by a group and encourages them to do a round with him. He knows the cute ears are pulling their weight when people start to approach him instead.

“One for the birthday girl?” Kihyun asks with a practiced grin on his face, eyeing the girl with a tiara on her head. Her eyes are a brilliant purple, and she looks like she has stardust imbedded in her cheeks and shoulders.

“Only if you do one with me!” she shrieks to a round of cheers from her friends surrounding them.

Kihyun takes a tube from the tray and kneels slightly, fitting the end of the tube into his mouth as the girl leans over him. She’s wobbling and probably already had a couple of shots with Minhyuk and her friends, judging by the state of her group, but she tries her best to take the shot without using her hands, closing her lips around the other end of the tube and pulling it from Kihyun’s mouth, tipping her head back to drain it in one go. Her friends cheer.

“You do it with Jaejin!” she demands, pulling a boy with electric blue hair to her side and taking a shot out of Kihyun’s tray. She puts it in the waistband of Jaejin’s pants.

Kihyun laughs good-naturedly and ducks his head to take the glass between his lips, dragging it out of the boy's waistband with practiced ease and throwing his head back to drink. The birthday girl shrieks and claps her hands and Jaejin flushes. Kihyun winks at him, gathering the empty test tubes and putting them back in the tray.

“It’s 15 units for two,” Kihyun says.

Jaejin gives him his card, the group of friends already closing their circle behind him, dancing wildly. As he’s paying, Kihyun takes out his phone and shows him a picture of Hyungwon. “I’ve been looking around for my friend,” he explains, and Jaejin peers at the picture, squinting his eyes. “Have you seen him?”

“Is he a model?” Jaejin asks.

Kihyun nods.

“Just on billboards, then,” Jaejin says. “I haven’t seen him, sorry.”

Kihyun thanks him and lets him go, wondering if Minhyuk is having any luck. He has to go back to the bar anyway to fill up on shots, so he turns and nearly crashes into someone for his trouble.

“Ah! Sorry,” he cries, steadying the tray and glasses.

“Your friend,” the man he almost ran into says. “I’ve seen him around.”

Kihyun’s attention focuses to a sharp point as he straightens. The man is built slim and tall, his hair dark and his chin perfectly tapered. He reminds Kihyun of a panther, his eyes almost electric green, his mouth curved into a neutral expression.

“This one?” Kihyun asks, flashing the picture of Hyungwon on his phone again. It’s Hyungwon getting his makeup done for his first photoshoot, when he’d been nervous and unwilling to admit it, and asked Kihyun to come with him under the guise of needing someone to talk to who wouldn’t have the conversational skills of a vacuous lamp.

The man nods, his expression tightening. He looks around the bar surreptitiously, and Kihyun follows the movement of his eyes.

“It’s definitely him,” the man says. “But can we speak somewhere more private? Alone?”

Kihyun sizes him up. He’s not stupid, but the promise of more information about Hyungwon presses at him, so he says, “Okay, but can you wait here for a moment? I’m just going to put the tray back.”

The man nods and instead of waiting, follows Kihyun at his heels to the bar, staying a short distance away when Kihyun waves Minhyuk over, conscious of the man standing at his back.

“I need to leave the tray here,” Kihyun says to Minhyuk, who furrows his eyebrows in confusion. “The man behind me says he has information about Hyungwon.”

Minhyuk’s eyes dart to the man’s location and back to Kihyun’s quickly, catching onto his apprehension. “That man?” Minhyuk asks. “That shady-looking man tapping his feet and looking like he’s wanted for significant crimes?”

Kihyun nods. “I’m taking him out back. He wants to talk alone,” Kihyun says. “If I’m not back in fifteen minutes, come check on me.”

“Make it ten,” Minhyuk says, eyes hardening as he pretends to clean a glass in his hands.

Kihyun nods at the compromise, already feeling his palms growing sweaty, his heart jumping around in his chest as though in defiance. He turns again and leads the stranger around the dance floor so they don’t have to shove their way through the masses, to the back of the bar where there’s another exit that leads to the alley between this building and the bar next door.

It’s empty save for a few large trash bags piling up near the mouth of the alley, and the sounds from the bar disappear when the door closes behind them. The night is dark all around them, just a light over the door illuminating an area directly around it for a few paces. Ambient light from the bar next door and from the street make the rest of the alley seem grey and dead. Kihyun freezes when he thinks he sees movement at the other end of the alley, away from the road, and crosses his arms in front of his chest. Then, everything is still. Must have been the wind.

He can feel the man following him. He turns around. “Okay, so--”

The man barrels into him and they crash against the opposite wall. Pain erupts in his head at the impact against concrete and steel, and stars dance in front of his vision. Kihyun sways before finding his footing and attempting to push back, but the man holding him is strong, and then there’s something sharp and cold being pressed against his throat.

Kihyun fights. Brings his knee up as hard as he can and the man doubles over and drops the knife. He can hear it clatter to the ground.

“Help!” Kihyun screams, trying to run on shaking legs, but the man regains his senses quickly and tackles him to the ground instead. Pain erupts again, this time at his temple, as the man barrels his fist into Kihyun’s cheek. A weight settles on top of him and a hand smothers the lower half of his face, silencing his screams and whimpers.

“Shame to kill you,” the man says. “You might have fit in. Pretty.”

He should have told Minhyuk five, he thinks irrationally. He’s going to die in a dirty alley behind the bar where he works and they’re never going to find Hyungwon. Hyungwon is going to fade away into obscurity. Kihyun wants to cry.

The knife presses against his throat again, slicing skin shallowly. He can feel the blood start to trickle down his neck as he pushes at the stranger with his hands, trying to get a hold of anything that will help, but the stranger’s eyes are glowing with intent and focus and Kihyun can’t breathe for the weight on his chest.

Then, just as suddenly, the man and his weight are gone. Kihyun blinks and inhales deep and places his palm against his neck and it’s wet but the cut is shallow, though it burns. His eyes fog up with tears as he sits up with difficulty. The world tilts on an axis, and then he sees the stranger against the wall.

_A foot off the ground against the wall._

Kihyun gasps as he watches the stranger struggle against an invisible hold, his face turning red and then purple. The door slams open behind him. He turns and Minhyuk is there, running to him, his face white with worry.

“Kihyun! Holy shit, Kihyun. What happened? Are you okay? What -- what the hell is that?”

Minhyuk is pointing at the stranger, who is convulsing now against the wall. Kihyun feels Minhyuk check him over for injuries, his hands lingering around the cut at his neck, his tender touch at his cheek where a bruise is forming. Minhyuk cradles Kihyun close and helps him stand, and Kihyun hides his face against Minhyuk’s neck when he realizes the stranger is going to die.

He hears him kick against the wall, hears Minhyuk’s gasp of shock and feels how he tightens his arms around Kihyun’s shoulders. Hears the stranger draw a last, wheezing breath. And then nothing.

Kihyun breathes against Minhyuk, their chests rising and falling in sync, and wonders what on earth Hyungwon has gotten himself into.

Then, footsteps.

Soft, careful footsteps. Kihyun looks up finally, averting his eyes from where the stranger must be, and sees a boy in a white gown that comes down to his knees walking toward them, peering at the stranger with curiosity. His hair is blond, like Minhyuk’s, and his skin is so pale he seems to glow in the half-light of the alley.

Kihyun stares, mesmerized, as the boy approaches the body of the stranger and raises his hand. When he lowers it, the stranger’s body slides down the wall and to the ground, landing in a crumpled heap. The boy turns to face them, a small trickle of blood under his nose. He wipes at it with the back of his hand, and it smears, dark across his skin.

The boy walks toward them again, stopping to pick up the pair of pink cat ears from the ground and brushing them off with careful, short strokes. When he reaches them, he holds it out tentatively, his expression openly hopeful.

Kihyun reaches his hand out to take it as Minhyuk’s hold around him tightens, but nothing happens when he takes the cat ears from the boy. The boy just smiles, soft and uncertain, hovering close enough that Kihyun could reach out and touch him, but far enough that the boy could still run.

Everything feels still and quiet and tenuous, like the surface of water before it breaks. “Thank you,” Kihyun says, feeling his heartbeat slowly return to its regular rhythm.

“Where did you come from?” Minhyuk asks.

The boy presses his lips together and lowers his eyebrows. He holds a single finger to his lips. _Secret_.

Kihyun nods, swallowing past a lump in his throat. The blood at his neck is sticky as it dries. “Did you -- did you do that?” he asks.

The boy turns to look at the body. On the back of his neck near his right ear there is a small tattoo of a rose in black. He turns back. Nods.

“How did you…?” Minhyuk starts, but Kihyun nudges him softly in the ribs when the boy seems to deflate at the start of the question. Minhyuk quiets, and Kihyun asks instead, “What’s your name?”

The boy’s gaze flits between the two of them, panic rising in his expression. Kihyun says, “I’m Yoo Kihyun. And this is Lee Minhyuk. Those are our names.”

The boy scratches at the back of his neck, where the tattoo is. His eyes brighten. He pulls back the sleeve of his gown on his left wrist, holding it up for them to see. There is a tiny roman numeral tattooed there in the center of his wrist, stark black against his skin.

“Your name is One? Your name can’t be _One_ ,” Minhyuk says, shaking his head vigorously. It looks like it’s about to fly right off of his neck. Kihyun puts his hand over his, holds his fingers, and Minhyuk calms.

The boy says nothing, but his eyes are sad, and full, and his lips turn down at the corners. He rubs at the tattoo of the single number on his wrist with his thumb as though self-conscious. Kihyun’s heart tightens in his chest at the expression. Something about the stranger pulls at him, tells him to be gentle. Maybe it’s the boy’s bright, cloudy grey eyes.

“Don’t listen to Minhyuk,” Kihyun says, realizing he’s been supporting his weight on one foot this entire time. He must have turned an ankle when the stranger tackled him to the ground. His head pounds, and he’s starting to feel dizzy even with Minhyuk’s hold around him. “ _One_ is a perfectly good name. It’s just short. Like, it sounds like a nickname. You know, my neighbor when I was a kid had a dog named Wonho. We used to call him Wonwon.”

“Wonwon?” the boy says, his smooth, low voice surprising them all. Color rises to the boy’s cheeks. His and Kihyun’s eyes meet, but the boy shies away again quickly.

“Yeah,” Kihyun says, clearing his throat and feeling a little thrill at hearing the boy’s voice, at having been the one to coax him to speak. “Wonho means ‘to protect those around you.’ He was a little yappy puppy but I guess he did protect my neighbor sometimes.”

“Protect?”

“Are you going to repeat everything Kihyun says?” Minhyuk asks, exasperated, and One frowns some more. Kihyun bounces on his foot, adjusting the weight on it, and smacks Minhyuk with an open palm at his chest. “Ow!”

“It means to keep someone or something else safe,” Kihyun explains. “Like you kept me safe.”

“Safe,” One says, nodding. “I...protected you.”

“You did,” Kihyun says softly.

“Wonho?” One asks with a tilt of his head, taking a tiny step forward.

Kihyun smiles. “You want us to call you Wonho?”

He nods, biting his lips, and Minhyuk whispers something about it being a dog’s name, though thankfully he keeps it under his breath, probably sensing Kihyun’s threat before he can voice it.

“We can do that,” Kihyun says. “Hi, Wonho.”

Wonho smiles, mirroring Kihyun, at hearing someone say his name.

.

**Author's Note:**

> comments are appreciated. come find me on twitter @andnowforyaya <3


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